In the 18 months since it was acquired, Bubrick’s Complete Office, an office products and furniture business based in Germantown, has had significant revenue and employee growth.
Since the sale, Bubrick’s sales have grown about 75 percent. The company’s work force has grown more than 60 percent.
“After the deal was done, we aggressively hired people to go out and grow the business,” said Ron Beam, president and part-owner of Bubrick’s. “And within two years, we’ve grown it 70 to 80 percent by doing things like taking care of our customers and our people. We sell a good product at a fair price.”
When the company was acquired, it had about $10 million in sales and 34 employees. The company had more than $17 million sales in 2007 and 54 employees. The firm is poised for significant gains this year, largely because national office suppliers have downplayed and downsized customer service, Beam said.
“With the big suppliers, their service levels are so low that we can compete on service and win business,” he said. “They’ve pulled all of the customer service out of the field and moved it to other parts of the world. That has created a lot of issues for customers.”
Bubrick’s was bought in June 2006 by Beam and three investors, whom he worked with previously at Corporate Express, a national office supplier. Beam and his investors acquired the business in June of 2006 from Howard Bubrick, who ran the company more than 30 years. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
One of Beam’s co-owners is Rick Israel, who owns an office supply company named Complete Office in Seattle. Before the group acquired Bubrick’s, Beam watched Israel take Complete Office from about $1 million in annual sales to more than $8 million sales in less than three years.
That growth demonstrated the potential for locally owned office suppliers that stress customer service, Beam said.
Beam is now a part owner of Israel’s Complete Office in Seattle, just as Israel is part owner of Bubrick’s in Germantown. The group of four also owns another office supply company in San Diego, which they have renamed Complete Office.
The three locations are separate companies but have common ownership. And the ownership group is starting to make moves that will make the three stores work, in some ways, like a national company.
For example, Bubrick’s Complete Office is now home to the finance department for all three stores, because of Beam’s background in finance and accounting.
“It made sense to build that infrastructure here,” he said. “We’ve just hired a vice president of finance, and we’ll build that team here to support all three (stores).”
The finance department will likely hire another three to four employees this year, Beam said. It makes sense to have the department run from Germantown, because the attorneys and accountants that the Complete Office group uses are located in and around Milwaukee.
There is potential for significant growth in office product sales around the country because of the significant consolidation that has occurred in the office product industry in the past 20 years, Beam said. As consolidation has continued, customer service has declined and customers have become dissatisfied.
“The service levels have suffered with the corporate world’s demands,” he said. “And a lot of people are chapped with this industry. For a lot of people, it’s not worth the time they have to go through (with national corporate chains). They’d rather pick up the phone, call Bubcrick’s and have us take care of their needs. Maybe they’ll have to pay two cents more for a Sharpie, but they’ll save time because they won’t have to go through a maze to get service.”
As a result, the office supply industry is in a period of fragmentation, as large chains are losing market share to smaller locally owned suppliers, Beam said.
For future growth, Bubrick’s and the other Complete Office stores will hire more quality sales staff as they become available, Beam said. The ownership group will also look for new acquisition possibilities, he said.
“We’re always looking,” he said. “This is an aging industry. Most owners don’t want to sell to the large national competitors. We’ll probably stay in the western part of the U.S. Contiguous states are a lot easier to manage. We’re going to be opportunistic. If the opportunity presents itself, we will go for it.”
Bubrick’s Complete Office
Address: N115 W18500 Edison Dr., Germantown
Industry: Office supply and furniture
Date of acquisition: June 2006
Revenue growth: More than $17 million in 2007, up from $10 million in 2006
Employees: 54, up from 34 in June 2006
Web site: www.bubricks.com
